Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Testing one, two, three, four, five.

I presume not. I went through that whole... There she is.

There I am.

City Council, Planning Commission, Airport Commission, special meeting agenda for Wednesday, 4th, 2026. And we'll begin with the roll call.

Okay. Council Member Vash?

Here.

Council Member Beal? Here. Council Member Gregory?

Here.

Council Member Strong? Here. Mayor Hammond?

Here.

Commissioner Christensen?

Here.

Commissioner Covarrubias? Here. Let the record show that he is not present. Commissioner Neal?

Here.

Commissioner Kogler?

Here.

Commissioner Lawrence? Here. Commissioner Roden? Here. Chairperson Marlowe? Let the record show that he is not here. Airport Commissioner Azim?

Here.

Commissioner Brown? Here. Commissioner Agnew? Commissioner Agnew is not present. Commissioner Beck?

Here.

Commissioner Gipple is not present. Commissioner Wilcox is not present. And Chairperson Britton.

Present. Okay, we all would stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll do that real quick. Join with me, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States Tonight, we are doing a discussion on considering the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Spaceport License for the Paso Rose Airport, and I'll let our city manager, Mr. Huot, explain how we're going to be Right in the meeting today.

Good evening, everyone. Nice to see everyone. Chris Huot, city manager. I wanted to provide the bodies this evening with just a quick overview, both for the audience as well. But first, I want to reflect that it was almost exactly four years ago to the date that these three bodies came together to have a very similar discussion, albeit we're in a much different place than we were four years ago in terms of the progress that we've made on the license. And we are excited to be able to share with you the work that we have done and what those next steps are in the process. So with that, I wanted to give you a quick overview of tonight's meeting. The first is we'll provide you with the history of the project. We're going to talk a lot about the progress that we've made to date on the license, what are the remaining steps to secure approval of that license, and then also wanted to talk a little bit about the projected economic impact of said spaceport should that come to fruition. Tonight we wanted to bring the three bodies together really simply to ensure that all of you have the same information and receive the same information at the same time Provide that consistent information in one Streamline format and then also gather all your questions comments and input before we return to the council for an ultimate decision and so with that tonight what will likely what we will be doing is first having staff and our consultants provide a presentation and Move to public comment, which is limited to this item only since we are in a special meeting. And then, of course, turn to our advisory bodies for your questions, input, and feedback. And then finally, back to the council for that same question, input, and feedback, and then also direction for staff this evening. And we will share, of course, that recommendation that's in your staff report. We have over the last many years prioritized expanding and diversifying the local economy. There's really two major objectives in doing that. One is providing greater economic stability for our region through diversification. And the second one is to attract high-paying head of household jobs in all sectors, but with a focus here tonight on the technology sector. As we were working on this goal and these goals, space technology really rose to the forefront for a couple different reasons. One, you look at the characteristics of our airport, and we'll have our consultants and staff talk a little bit about that. It was primed for this type of industry attraction. Of course, our proximity to Cal Poly. We know what Cal Poly is doing in terms of their aerospace engineering programs, CubeSat development, they are right in our backyard. I know over the grade seems like a long way away for some, but it's a short few-minute drive down south to tap into that knowledge base. Of course, we're in proximity to Vandenberg Space Force Base in the Silicon Valley. We do not see Vandenberg as a competitor. We see them as complementary to the work that we are doing here. Different type of launches, different type of aircraft, different type of mission. And then finally, you know, again, about four, four and a half years ago, the decision was taken and directed by the council to pursue the license project. And that's why we continue to work on it. And that's why you all are here today. We have, again, done quite a bit of work. I'm excited to share that with you. And so at this moment, Mayor, if I may, I'll bring up Paul Sloan to begin the discussion. Very good. Welcome, Paul.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Huot. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, distinguished commissioners, members of the public, thank you for the opportunity to present the information to you this evening. That's a great overview of where the project started from and why we're working on it. So I'm going to just sort of walk us through some of the details of what we've done and where we look to go. Real quick, first thing I'd like to do is to nod to our business climate survey. This is the second year the city has conducted this. We do it in the fourth quarter of each year to look forward to the next year. So 24 and 25, this is a survey that's sent out to all business license holders in the city limits and asks a number of questions. And you can download the survey from the city website or the report on the survey. And I'll give a link later on where you can get that as well. As you notice, even over the two years, high operating costs, regulatory issues primarily from the state level, and workforce availability remained top challenges for businesses, although there's a bit of a shift with workforce rising to the top, and that's related to a number of things, housing, et cetera. In the category we asked in the survey, Beyond Challenges with Optimism Drivers, and the respondents expressed pride and optimism about Paso Robles' ongoing evolution, and across both years, 24 and 25, The reasons for confidence included tourism strength and visitor spending, supportive local government and a pro-business climate, population and housing growth, community collaboration, and small town character. And the sense of community came up very strongly over and over again in people's comments, how much they enjoy being in Paso Robles, and in the part where they rate Paso Robles versus the state, local businesses rated Paso Robles 20 points higher and the state as a whole is a place to do business. So they really do enjoy it despite the obvious challenges we're all working to address. What was interesting in the 25 study was the optimism expanded to include spaceport and technology quarter development and interest from aerospace and advanced manufacturing firms. And these are comments that people typed in themselves. And so these are from businesses who see as we expand the economic impacts in our community, these are revenues that will circulate throughout all the businesses in our community. A little bit about spaceports. There are 14 commercial spaceports in the U.S. There were 12 when we started this project, and two more have become licensed. Commercial spaceport license is issued by the FAA, much like they issue an airport license. And in fact, you can have both an airport and a spaceport license. Of the currently 14 spaceports that you see there, there's only one in California, in the entire West Coast. That's out in the Mojave. Of the 14 commercial spaceports, there are different types of licenses that you can apply for. There's licenses for different types of launches. There's what's called vertical launch, which are the big rockets blasting off like you see at Vandenberg or Cape Canaveral. We are not applying for vertical. We're applying for what's called a horizontal launch. And a horizontal launch is working with next generation craft called space planes. There's some posters at the back for folks to look at afterwards if they like. But they take off, space planes take off from a conventional runway, like we have at the Paso Robles Airport. They fly up to altitude, which could be low Earth orbit. They may deploy a payload. They may run tests, diagnostics on a captive payload. And they come back down and they land back on the runway. If you're standing out at the airport, what you would see would be essentially look like a small jet taking off and landing. Of the 14 commercial spaceports, eight are licensed for horizontal launch. Four are launched for vertical. One is launched for both horizontal and vertical. And one in Huntsville, Alabama is just a reentry site. And they're specifically working with a company that is a hybrid vehicle. It launches vertically on the nose of a rocket, but it comes back and lands horizontally. So there's all different things that you can do with your licenses. But that's what we're looking to apply for. When we started the process, we initiated on parallel tracks. One is on licensing, and one is on the tech corridor, which I will come back to. The project kicked off with a partnership between the city and Cal Poly with their amazing aerospace engineering program, as Mr. Hua said, just down the road. So in the early parts of this, we worked with students and faculty doing some of the studies related to it, as well as some of the more accessible parts of the application. As we moved into the more technical areas, we needed to contract with specialized experts in engineering firms, as you can see here. We reached a point in the licensing process, application process, when the FAA informed us that before we could continue, we would need to update the airport's master plan. And normally the airport master plans are updated every 7 to 10 years. Ours had not been done in 20. It's a very expensive undertaking, but that's where you see the detour on the map there to go and update the airport master plans. You may have seen in the press that Congressman Panetta, our local congressman, aided us a lot by securing federal funding in the tune of a grant of half a million dollars to cover the large part of the airport master plan update. That, which is fantastic. The process is a lengthy one, about 18 months. It kicked off last March, so we're about two-thirds of the way through. And if anyone is interested to follow along the timeline or the reports that are generated, then go to prb.airportstudy.net. And all of the documents are there that they can read and download. Modern commercial spaceport activities are completely compatible with general aviation activities as well. That's why you'll see... places having both an airport and a spaceport license, such as Mojave Air and Spaceport, or the Colorado Air and Spaceport. This is some of the information that came out of our airport master plan study that's in process. We've learned here that we have 197 total base aircraft at our airport today, and the projections looking forward 20 years to add, looking forward about 100 more, up to 296 over the next 20 years. By comparison, The Colorado Air and Spaceport today has over 500 based aircraft. So having local general aviation aircraft is completely compatible. And even for 20 years, we will not even approach what Colorado has today, their spaceport. Today, the airfield we have is using 13.8% of its airfield capacity. And in 20 years, that's forecasted to grow to just shy of 22%, leaving nearly 80% available. Just in... land comparison, the airport in San Luis Obispo is 340 acres. The Paso Robles airport is 1,300 acres. We are a full four times larger than the San Luis Obispo airport. And as anyone going on Google Maps or Google Earth can see, it's largely undeveloped as of yet. This is a page out of the initial document, which we discussed four years ago at the joint session. This was produced by Tartaglia Engineering. This was the technical review to determine if the project was feasible, which they determined it was. And in that study, they identified nearly 300 acres on airport property that could potentially be developed for spaceport operations. Likewise, Kauffman Associates, which are the experts, the consultants working on the airport master plan, have likewise identified space for potential airport operations as well as non-aeronautical things while maintaining large amounts of space to safeguard all general aviation activities and other things out on the airport going forward. Outside the airport, the magenta line is sort of a line we've drawn around the city limits that we refer to as the Tech Corridor. It's cut off there, it actually goes all the way down to Cuesta North Campus, but right around the airport, the green boxes show land adjacent to the airport that could potentially be developed. The little left hand corner of the large square, that's the landing project at the old boy school, which is in process, and that'll be an amazing development, 140 acres of business and tech park and all sorts of things. The other areas that you see are just land that could be developed out in the airport area. Interesting side note, adjacent to the airport, 295 acres of vineyards that was just listed about a month or so ago, And it's right next to the airport, and in their promotional materials, they reference how it is part of the tech corridor. So it currently has grapes on it, but they're marketing it to people who are interested to do something with nearly 300 acres that is inside the tech corridor. They talk a lot about the efforts of the city going forward to bring in tech companies, et cetera. Earlier this year, at the end of January, we attended Commercial Space Week, which is a series of conferences in Orlando, Florida, which includes the Global Spaceport Summit. And the theme this year was spaceports. Do you have spaceports from all around the world come to this? The theme was Catalysts for Economic Growth. And one of the things that they stressed was that 90% of the economic activity which takes place at a spaceport is not related to launch. It's related to everything else. It's related to testing. It's related to research and development. It's related to advanced manufacturing, etc., And that's where the jobs are, with all the businesses around these areas that we can do. And what sets our particular space for project apart, aside from the jobs and the commercial side, is the educational side, partnering with our local education partners. We call it a K-20 program, with our CTE high school programs, all the way up through Cuesta Technician, and of course the advanced degrees with Cal Poly. One of the things that I said is testing. And so what we did on the tech corridor side of things is we built our first test site out there. If you know anything about the Paso Airport, it's built in World War II. It's a former military airfield. And so in sort of some of the more remote parts of the airport, we have these very large cement pads, which are date from World War II. And that's where they would park bombers. And they're spread out because the idea is if the airport was attacked, they couldn't hit all the bombers at once. And these are in parts of the airport that have not been used in a very long time. So the city rebuilt the access out to one, and we've turned it into a test site for micropropulsion systems that are used, little rocket engines that push satellites around in space and other things. The picture on the right-hand side is one of our two control booths we have out there for companies. And the president of one of the companies, it was actually our first tenant out there, is here this evening with some of his team there in the picture, and these are photos that Stellar Exploration has provided us. Today we have three aerospace engineering firms using the test site, along with Cal Poly students. Very recently, a few weeks ago, there was a company that came up to use our test site, and originally they were going to test for one to three days, and then they notified Mark Scandales, our airport manager, that they were going to stay for the whole week, and then they said, actually were going to stay for several weeks. And this was exciting news for us. And at the end, sort of at the test run, Mark and I took the CEO and the COO of this company out for dinner downtown at Streetside just to find out how their experience went, what went well, what could we do better. And these were very experienced people. The CEO had done testing out in Mojave for 16 years. And when the places that you can test are fairly limited, And so they said, it's great. It's testing out here. It's very business friendly. Mark has got a great job setting it up there. And he says, what really is amazing is that when we test in Mojave, it was almost a punishment for the staff because at the end of the day, there was nowhere to go. There's nothing to do. And you're in the middle of the desert. And he says, look at us now. We're sitting downtown. Our team can... Go have a fine dining dinner with world-class wines. You can go to a microbrewery or a sports bar. You can listen to music. You can go see a movie at the theater. All that within walking distance of our downtown core. And it was interesting to hear that was the selling point. It's great to have a great, easy-to-get-to test site, but the fact that after hours they could do long test runs for weeks on end because it was pleasant for their staff. Almost like a little vacation where they're being put up in a hotel by their company. so that was really great to hear so i told that to main street i said a lot of what we do that working on the downtown side is really going to be a major tool for us on the business attraction side so that's really thing how all these different segments of our economy really do work together another area that we were told for potential development is called payload processing this is preparing the the payloads which are satellites for to be launched. When they're taken to, say, Vandenberg and given to SpaceX, they're already, they're fueled, they're packaged, they're tested, and they're taken as a package because they're rideshares. These rockets have multiple different projects on them. And then, so that's an opportunity for us. And what we've learned, companies told us, is that a lot of the payload processing for Vandenberg is actually done in LA. And they truck it up to Vandenberg. And companies approached us saying, you know what, if you did payload processing, you're a lot closer. and obviously it's a great place for us to work, et cetera. As things happen with the current changes going on in the wine industry, we now have significant warehousing space, like the picture you see there. This is a 40,000 square foot building. It was purpose-built for wine storage. It's got an amazing climate control system for storing wine, and it's now completely empty. This is an example of a facility, and we have more than one in the city, where we could set up a payload processing. And on the right hand side is just playing with AI to show you what's a built out payload processing facility could look like. And that would just open up a whole lot of opportunities from an ecosystem of bringing in businesses, suppliers, vendors, et cetera, doing the testing, packaging, and then drive it to 80 miles down to Vandenberg. Also something that Mark Scandellis is working on out at the airport is working on building out a private 5G network. And this is really great because if you've sort of limited our internet access out there as your cell service, but this would be a great project that will bring in opportunities for enhanced airport security, as well as high speed safe secure internet across the airport, including spaceport out to the test site, et cetera. So this is an ongoing project right now, and if you wanna, he's here this day, but you can grab him to ask him the stats of that. That's a really exciting project going out. So it's a lot of things doing in tandem to help develop that northeast quadrant of the city, to bring in all these sorts of tools that will be used in the eventuality that we go on to become a spaceport. If you have a chance to look at the attachments in the staff report tonight, we have an amazing number of letters of support. and they were attached so you can go and read them. And these are just examples we have from our elected officials, our regional education partners, major organizations, as well as our local stakeholder groups. This is just a fantastic showing of support, and I encourage you to read through those letters when you have a chance. One letter in particular I'd like to highlight is Streamline Aero. This is excerpt from their letter of support. This is an aerospace engineering firm which has been testing, one of the firms testing out at our site. Excerpt, the strategic move to pursue an FAA commercial spaceport license is a critical step. From our perspective in the industry, the benefits of this project are threefold, and they go on to talk about infrastructure for innovation, economic magnetism, and workforce development. I encourage you to go and read through that. And these are from people that are actually using the test site. So this is a firsthand, right from the target audience that we're looking to reach. NASA has a letter of support in there, which... amazed us all. But what was even more amazing was several months ago, NASA contacted our city manager and asked if he would be available for a call. Thankfully he was, which was good. So we always say when NASA calls, the answer is yes. And so we had a great Zoom call with NASA and they were talking about how they've been following what we're doing. They were interested to meet with us and come down and visit our facility and see what's going on. So we had it set for them to come down in the fourth quarter and then the government shut down and so the plans kind of fell apart. As luck would have it, they contacted us two weeks ago, and they say, hey, we're all back on track. We'd like to get something out of the books. So as it stands now, we're looking to have a visit from NASA sometime in April, which is pretty exciting. Other milestones, Senator Padilla put in an appropriation for Cal Poly, and this was granted. It went through the whole process for a million dollars to set up the Spaceport Training and Research Center. And this is specifically done for the Paso Robles Spaceport Training and Research Center. And if you can read the little text there, this is straight from the appropriations listings. Funding will be used by the Paso Robles Spaceport Training and Research Center to invest in equipment to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory complex tied to the commercial space industry and feature educational programs, research facilities, and collaborative partnerships. On the left is Justin Wellner, the Director of Government Affairs for Cal Poly. In the middle is our own Mark Scandales, Airport Manager. And on the right is Margaret Aracida, who is in the office of Senator Padilla, who came over to visit us and tour the airport. This is an exciting development. A couple of things. Last year, being a part of last year, Cal Poly secured a National Science Foundation, NSF, grant to hold a spaceport conference, which was held at the Allegretto Inn here in Paso. It was very well attended. The report from that is attached, if you want to look through it, all the presentations in there at the end of the staff report is an attachment. We had attendees from seven states and six universities, which was fantastic. And it was just a really great experience, very great visibility. One of the companies that attended was Dawn Aerospace, which is a leader in the space plane area sector. And they spoke about their plane, what it would look like operating out of a horizontal launch, spaceport, et cetera, really fantastic. One of the questions we asked while they were speaking was, hypothetically, PASO becomes a spaceport for horizontal launch. Don Aerospace or something like that decides that they want to work here in the U.S., and they have clients. What would it look like from an actual impact day-to-day of our airport, from a private pilot's perspective, for example? So they walked us through what it would look like, and I don't know if my clicker will work or not. We can try. But the runway on the right, which is the long one, would never close at all. The short one on the left, they would need to close for... They said about three hours. That would include fueling and flight time. Mark Skandalis, the airport manager, has a plan for the fueling, which would even be shorter than that, where they wouldn't fuel on the runway. They'd fuel off-site and taxi out like an aircraft. So it would be less than that. And when they do launch, they prefer to launch in the early morning hours. So in theory, if all those stars aligned and they were operating here, it would essentially close one of the runways on launch day for three or fewer hours while it takes off and flies back. And that's what it would look like if it was actually doing horizontal launches out there. And one other thing, if I can highlight it here. There we go. That's the test site. See the little finger sticking out right there? That's where the current test site is. And if you look on Google Earth, you can go around and you can see all similar ones in other parts, remote areas of the airport, where there's potential to potentially develop additional test sites, as that apparently is a very good model that works. Now, one exciting development with Don Aerospace They were very interested in working with American universities. So they signed agreements with ASU, Arizona State University, Johns Hopkins, and Cal Poly, and to fly student projects. And so they're based out of New Zealand, not aerospace. So the student projects were shipped down. And the first one they flew was Cal Poly. They love Cal Poly. They've been here several times and spoken on campus. And so when they flew the Cal Poly one, They made a video about it, which was really great. We didn't know that they were gonna do this, but this is what they produced for us.

Cal Poly's payload is essentially a data acquisition system, so it's a tool that they can use to understand the flight, understand what's happening in flight, understand how their payload is performing and so on. And this is such a great experience for students to take the academics and bring that into the real world. Aurora is so transformative for students and researchers because there's a huge difference between a hypothesis to a lab test, and then lab tests to real-world functioning. Often, university can be quite stuck in those first phases, but by flying something called Aurora, you can go from your hypothesis all the way through to a flight group that's just totally transformative.

Countdown is with you, Yoko. Five, four, three, two, one.

Fly properly.

It's great to be able to fly payloads for students and help them learn about aerospace and understand how to really get something from the academic side of things and the theory to actually building it and flying it and actually making something work in the real world.

And that is quite literally what a horizontal launch looks like. There we go. This is a timeline over the last four years. As City Manager Hewatt noted, we started, we had a meeting just like this with all the bodies in 2022. We presented the preliminary technical review that was done, that had been commissioned by the city with Tartai Engineering and Witt Associates. Stu Witt was the person who created the Mojave Spaceport, very knowledgeable person with this consultancy. Those are the various deliverables and milestones we've met over the years that you can see there. All those different documents are also attached to the staff report, if you want to look over them, leading up to tonight's meeting on March 4th. Because we worked with a variety of folks over the years, as we slowly just nibbled at the low-hanging fruit, we needed to find out what all have we done. So we commissioned a company known as RS&H, which is a leader in the aerospace sector, among other things, to go through and look at all of this that's been done over the last several years and see How does it look as far as moving toward the application for horizontal launch? What do we have done? What do we need to do? And how can we get from here to there? So tonight we have with us two senior folks from RSNH to talk about the roadmap forward as well as the economic impacts of it. A little bit about RSNH. They are a leader in spaceport planning and licensing. They work with spaceports all around the world. And if you go to our conference, they're the ones that are doing the keynote speaking, so we're really pleased to have them with us here this evening. Here with us tonight is Andrew Nelson, who's the vice president of aerospace. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Ohio University, as well as an MBA in finance from MIT, which I understand is a really good community school on the East Coast somewhere. Jorge Gonzalez is a senior principal consultant who has a degree in civil engineering from Columbia University, as well as a master's from George Washington University.

washington dc which is my alma mater so you know he's awesome so with that i would like to welcome andrew to the podium welcome andrew thank you um just a clarification i i didn't get a i didn't graduate from my school of economics but i did go there in a certificate program that that trade school in boston made me go to before they would let me in so full disclosure I did pass microeconomics with too high – all I needed to get was a B, and I did better. So there you go. Worked too hard. I'd like to thank the Airport Commission, the Planning Commission, and City Council for having us here. It's a wonderful thing to be in Paso Robles. This is my fourth trip in about 18 months, and I would – I need to spend more time here because it's beautiful. Thank you very much. So, do I push this button? Okay, great. They taught me that at Ohio U, not at MIT. Real quick, a quick word on RS&H. RS&H was founded in 1941. This is our 85th year. One of our very first jobs at RS&H, we're architects, engineers, and consultants. We don't build things, but we help get things built. We do a lot of things of the upfront planning, and then we engineer it. We have professional engineers and architects, et cetera. And then we develop a package, and then, of course, things get built, and we supervise that construction for the owner or the client. And then, of course, we do follow-up. One of our very first jobs in 1941 was to lay out a brand new airport called Banana River Naval Air Station, which is in Brevard County, Florida. And that is now called Patrick Space Force Base. And we're still doing work there. In about 1950, we were asked to trek up A1A a little bit and help plan some roads and some concrete pads and that sort of thing on a bit of wasteland spit out near the ocean. And that was the launch pad for a launch called Bumper 8, which was the very first launch out of what is now Cape Canaveral Spaceport Station. And so we've probably designed every launch pad in the country at least once. Don't hold me to that. There might be one or two we didn't hit. Or we've redesigned it. So we've been around the block. We do quite a number of spaceport consulting and planning jobs. That's a little bit of our background in aerospace. We also have people who do roads and bridges and airports and those sorts of things. The company is about 2,000 people across the country. So today I'm going to run through what we were asked to do. What's the general state of the industry? Why is space so hot at the moment? And is it just a flash in the pan or is it an overnight success? that sort of thing and where's it going. Talk a little bit about spaceports as an economic engine and some examples of the great success that's out there already. I'll talk a little bit about the activity that went on prior for the last couple three years, what we thought of that effort and then what is it, where is it headed and what's the roadmap forward. And then I'll talk a little bit about What are some of the risks, and how do you mitigate those risks? Thank you very much. Okay. So high-level tasking, as Paul said, we were to review the existing work on the spaceport license and then determine what's left to do. The work to date by Paso Robles has been very good, quite good, actually. And there was a lot done, from what we can tell, with very little funds. So that's also impressive. We think that it's going to take about 12 to 18 months to complete the spaceport licensing process. There are some risks around that, which I'll talk about later. But there are very strong market forces supporting this effort. There's a lot of advanced technology that's been introduced into the space world in the last 10 years. Reusability is a big thing. Reusing the first stages and not throwing them away, much like the aviation world does. has really picked up cadence, lowered prices, new applications, new technologies. How do you do satellites? There was some work done by a university in California called San Luis Obispo, I think, on the thing called CubeSats. And everyone thought, well, that's sort of strange. How is that going to work? And it worked brilliantly. And it got really, the juices flowing and innovation that created a standard changed the world of satellites. Lockheed Martin and Boeing weren't happy, I'm sure. They didn't think much of it at the beginning. They think a lot about it now. Supportive government policies are definitely driving the industry, and there's significant private investment. Tens of the 20s of billions a year in private money going into spaceports, into launch technologies, into satellite technologies, the whole value chain, supply chain. It's pretty impressive. So state of the space industry. Today, orbital launches have gone from 20 to 25 about three or four years ago to almost 200 this year in the U.S., So an order of magnitude increase. The projection by the FAA is in about 2034. There's going to be about 400, 420 launches in the US. And the Space Force puts it in 2035 at about 500 a year. And we see that continuing to go up toward the right. Market-wise, today the space industry is about $640 billion a year globally. About three years ago, it was about $350 billion. It's going to a trillion. You can pick the trajectory. Some Wall Street firms have it going to two or three children in less than 10 years. That's a compounded annual growth rate between 7% and 10%. So if it's 7%, it doubles in 10 years. If it's 10%, it doubles in 7%. So those are easy numbers to figure out. A lot's going into this. So there's quite a bit of opportunity to attract technical development, testing, manufacturing, whether it be launch systems or part of the value chain, spacecraft. There are launch, landing, and reentry operations, satellite tracking, and then all the Sort of the related things. There's a lot of data that's going up and down. You know, tracking stations, innovative data centers, green data centers. There's a variety of different things. So, quite a number of cities have successfully pursued spaceports as an economic development strategy and diversification strategy. Mojave is an example that probably many of us know. They have sort of a permission to fail in Mojave, but that also means a permission to succeed. Cities like Las Cruces, New Mexico, with Spaceport America, Midland, Texas, the oil patch is diversifying with aerospace. Huntsville, Alabama always had aerospace, but they're diversifying with civil and commercial space now. And of course, Houston is a space center, but they have a spaceport at Ellington Field. If anyone knows where Ellington is, it's surrounded by everything. But they got a spaceport license, and they've since generated about 2,000 jobs on that site, which would not have been there had they not had the spaceport license. So I think a spaceport license for passive roadways, it does support a significant push in economic development arena, but it also gives an opportunity to promote national and international collaborations that are very impactful from an educational perspective, but also from a business perspective. And the example, of course, is your Cal Poly propulsion test stand and the other private companies that Paul highlighted earlier. And I cited Midland, Texas, Mojave, and Houston. What's interesting about Midland is that they got a spaceport license for their Far Park 139 airport. They have commercial service in there. There was a low expectation they were going to have any sort of wing spacecraft there that's flying in the near term. However, a satellite company called AST Space Mobile plopped down there about five years ago, four years ago, and they now have produced 1,200 jobs going toward 2,000 in the next year, year and a half. Publicly traded company. Check it out. ASTS. It's doing pretty good. You will probably end up using their services, and you won't even know it. They have deals with AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, where if you're in the middle of some place and you don't have regular cell phone service, your phone's still going to work. It's just going to be direct to cell. And so it's a very interesting company. But there's another 10 companies in Midland as well. So regarding the spaceport licensing efforts to date, we reviewed quite a number of documents that Mark and his team and some of the consultants put together. Many were acceptable and or complete, waiting for either FAA review or had already been reviewed. There was some continuing work that was ongoing and some work to be started. The work to be started is there are some pretty heavy lifts. But I mentioned earlier, very good material has been produced. We need a few specialized analysts to move forward. But it looks like a pretty straightforward path from here to there. So the remaining work on the spaceport license, I'll go into a little bit more detail. So there's quite a number of technical assessments that need to happen. One is what's called a flight safety analysis. One of the best companies out there to do that is a company called Aerospace Corporation. I don't think any of you have heard of Aerospace. Maybe one or two who worked there for 40 years. But I've used Aerospace Corp for 14, 15 years for flight safety analysis. Some of the best in the country. I've reviewed this on the side with their lead analyst and he and I have looked at it and it's like, oh yeah, not a problem. It shouldn't be any issue. There are some additional risk analysis that occur. There's some sonic boom and noise which is done. The type of vehicles you're looking at are fairly small, fairly impactful. I don't think it would be much of a sonic boom. It might be a sonic toot. But, you know, if you're out there listening for it, you might hear it. There are some formal letters of agreement that have to occur with the Coast Guard and with FAA air traffic. Those are pretty much template documents these days, but they have to get done. There's process. It's the government. And then, of course, we heard earlier about the updated airport layout plan through your master plan activities. So that's moving forward. And then there's an environmental review. This happens with Any spaceport project, probably an environmental assessment. There's a potential for spaceport categorical exclusions now, which occur in the aviation world. But through a new presidential executive order, there's a strong encouragement for the commercial space transportation office at FAA to use categorical exclusions in the spaceports world. So we'll see. Depends. It would be a test case. But 12 to 18 months, I think, is a good time window. So some of the risks associated with that time window are the workload that the Commercial Space Transportation Office, FAAST, has on their plate. You remember that earlier chart from 20 to 200 launches going to 400? During that tenfold increase, their staffing only increased by 40%. or 30%. So they have a lot more people doing a lot more work than they had in the past and they're not getting additional funds anytime soon. So they have to prioritize their work. So what really helps with a spaceport license to get in line with SpaceX and Blue Origin and the other launch service providers who are launching from Vandenberg and other places and have to get their paperwork stamped is to have a customer that signed a letter of intent or a memorandum of understanding or agreement, et cetera, that says, gee, it would really be great to fly from your site if we knew there was a timeline associated with it because we have business planning, et cetera. That helps light a fire underneath the AST reviewers. And I think as we heard earlier, that looks pretty good. Our general recommendation after our review was that it's a good path. There's lots of motivating factors within the marketplace, within the industry itself, the growth, and there's a lot of other benefits to the community that could be highly attractive. If you were to ask me, I think you should move forward. I am now going to pass the baton to Jorge. And Jorge is going to talk to you about our economic impact.

Good evening. Thank you for having us here today. Really appreciate it. My mission, like you would say in the space program, was to look into the economic impact that a potential spaceport would have in the economy of both the Paso Robles and the San Luis Obispo region. But there's no spaceport, right? So part of my whole process was to really use some of the expertise we have developed through many years. I lead the company's financial, economic, and business consulting practice. And we've developed economic impact studies for several airports and spaceports most recently. So my mission was, like I said, let's look at what potentially could happen in the region if a spaceport would be developed here. So I'll start with... This is kind of the agenda that we put together for my presentation. Hopefully it's not too technical. But what I wanted to first share is a little bit of the background and what the purpose was of this mission that we were encouraged to develop for you. And like Andrew was mentioning, Spaceport has become a testbed to try to look into how to diversify jobs, which Paul mentioned earlier, and also how much do they really impact the economy of a region. Yes, again, everybody believes that spaceports obviously would bring high-paying jobs, but again, we want to make sure we temper some of the potential problems of new jobs that would be created and the type of jobs that would be created. So there's a methodology that has been used for many years on how to consider and assess what would be the economic impact of a spaceport here. Generally, when you develop an economic impact, you look at several different elements. You start with what are the direct impacts, and these are the economic impacts that would be generated by businesses directly located at the airport. For example, an engine testing facility would have employees, would have payrolls, would have a different variety of outputs that would be increasing the economy and economic output directly of that. All of those businesses are required to generally buy different types of materials and products from businesses around the area. So that is what's called indirect impact. So generally, we look into the type of businesses that are being installed at the airport, and then the suppliers and the supply chain that basically provides them with the different materials and services. At the same time, there is all of these induced impacts that are generated from the money that is being spent in the economy, like all of these employees and And businesses actually go out and buy things at your different shops and go and buy more wine and things like that. So all of this basically creates this chain that eventually determines the economic impact. It's not just purely the jobs that are generated for the businesses that would come to the spaceport, but it has kind of a domino effect and an induced effect by basically the spending of these people in the economy. What you see on the right-hand side is kind of a little bit of What would be generating those type of economic impacts? And don't think that that rocket that is being launched there is a vertical launch. It's actually just part of the graphic. It's something like I told Paul. It's just something that would be able to clearly show that there is airspace or spaceport activity here that would directly influence the type of output revenues that would be generated here. there's a construction that different private sector businesses that would be establishing themselves at the airport would do. And generally, at the spaceports, the private sector is the one that develops buildings and facilities. So the construction generates a number of jobs, generates also a kind of indirect and direct impact into the economy. Generally, As we build up the economic model, we use a series of different economic indexes that are developed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that's part of the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. They basically look at every activity around the country and through years have been compiling data about the economic different elements associated with production and how the effect of the The problem of being a Latino, you use your hands to explain everything. But again, the Bureau is basically, for many years, has been collecting all of this economic data that we use to basically determine how this first dollar or how the dollars are being spent in the economy. They're called multipliers, basically.

So that's what we use generally for this type of analysis.

type of inputs we generally use for this we collect data obviously from the master the master plan that is being developed for for the airport uh and a lot of different financial information uh here the fact that you have some letters of intent and business planning information providers more information about the type of businesses that could potentially be located at the airport like i said we use the um information from the bureau of economic analysis and uh and then developed a series of value chain examples by looking at what has happened at other airports around the country and around the world. This is not basically a lot of big rocket science, but at the same time, again, using reality and real test examples that have happened around the country and around the world, what type of business have actually come to a spaceport in an environment such as Paso Robles. We looked into that. And last but not least, which is something that helped us a lot, is we did conduct a series of surveys to existing airport tenants that actually, that would be relevant in the sense of, okay, they could benefit from a spaceport at the airport. So we basically conducted a direct survey to all of the tenants and Specifically, we picked the ones that would be relevant because of the type of businesses they're conducting and basically asked them to give us some questions that would help us kind of tune the results of the economic analysis with the reality of the region and what can be found here. At the same time, the fact that the city has received these letters of interest from different potential business partners, we also reached out to them to try to understand a little bit what businesses they would be interested in putting here, and kind of forecast the number of jobs that they potentially would bring here, how much space they would need at the airport, things like that. All of those were kind of incorporated into a financial model that would help us basically, like I said, tailor the economic analysis to the Paso Robles region. a list of the tenants that we interviewed and surveyed, and this is the list of organizations that have provided Ventures of Interest, who we basically submitted or sent them a survey to help us fine-tune, like I said, the economic model. We sent 16 different surveys to different agencies and got back basically seven, which For me, it's good. Generally, we get about a 30% response on surveys. We got about a 43%. And the type of questions we asked was, generally, what is the average salary that basically they pay their employees, which helps us quite a lot. What generally is their revenue per employee, which is another metric that helps us also determine economic outputs. How much the payrolls, business, what type of business they basically are conducting, and how that relates to the value chain, some of which Andrew just mentioned, that we would expect for an airport spaceport similar to what would be built here at Los Orobos. The spaceport and the economic model that we built, basically we needed to make sure we understood what was the vision that the city had for the space work. Obviously, like it was explained by Paul and by Andrew, we're not looking at this as being a major activity launching type of facility. So a lot of it would be mainly focused around research and development of different technologies and all of the support that the airspace business needs. So that was basically how we started looking into the different types of businesses That could come here. We develop a potential value chain of the businesses. Some of these already Andrew mentioned. Here you see the list of all of the businesses that we believe could come to Paso Robles. The ones in the darker or purple color blinds, excuse me, those are actually businesses or services that are already being provided here, either by the tenants or around the region. And the ones that you see in green, those are the services that would potentially be provided by some of the firms that actually submitted their letters of interest. So we basically kind of validated what we started with. Okay, this is a list of different potential businesses and services that would be required. And actually, it's interesting that about 80%, 35% of those, we already have somebody either with a letter of interest or already are at the airport that potentially could expand their services to get into the spaceport business. These are the type of businesses that we actually included in the economic model. Like I said, construction, and there is a list of there. And the reason that we have to do this is the way the Bureau of Economic Analysis catalogs all of the indexes and economic data that they provide. So basically, we group them into different categories so we could be able to get some of the indexes that are needed to determine the economic value of each one of them to the region. And again, they have specific metrics for San Luis Obispo and the region, so that's what we basically fed into the model. The economic impact measures, four key things that are critical, and I know Chris loves this, are basically jobs. It actually determines the number of direct jobs, and like I mentioned earlier, these are the jobs that would directly come from businesses located at the airport. How much payroll, I mean, basically looking at average salaries for different employees, that gives us a payroll in that. Business revenues, the output, how much revenue these companies would generate, which helps us with determining some of the tax benefits that the county and the city would receive. And then the value added, which is kind of, like I said, this induced impact that actually comes from the domino effect of the money being spent in the region. So here's basically what the model provided us. On the short term, and this is what we expect between a five and ten year period, depends on how quickly we wrap it up, how quickly you're able to form these partnerships. Direct jobs, this would be jobs directly at the airport site, around 80. Total jobs, about 180. And then you can read some of the numbers there. Payroll earnings, about $25 million. Business revenues, around $68.5 million value added. And taxes, and I'm sure this is a good number for the mayor, about $6.4 million additional taxes that would be generated from the businesses that would be located around... airport and then looking at the longer term this is a uh we would say 11 to 20 year period again the numbers increased exponentially uh basically just looking a little bit more at this compounded growth of the space industry like andrew was showing we have direct jobs of about 315 jobs uh total jobs would be direct and indirect of about close to 900 jobs payroll earnings of about $96 million, output of about $335 million, and a value added of about $142 million, with about $30 million in taxes. So that was the result of the analysis and the estimated economic impacts that we determined as we finalized the model. So, I guess, Paul?

you okay thank you all right this concludes the presentation portion of it just a quick aside the domain name you see on the screen pick Paso comm we've registered that that will take you to the economic development section of the city website where you can download all the various documents seen tonight as well as other ones plus there's a bunch attached to the staff report before we go on to any decision that this is where we are I'll turn it over to Mr. Mayor, to run the rest of the meeting, if any questions or discussions, et cetera. Thank you.

I think what we might want to do is maybe have public input, comment first, and then we can come back for our commissioners to answer some questions and go that route. So let's open it up then to the public. Anyone wishing to address this item tonight, please come forward and we'll listen and we'll move on with our agenda. Dale, welcome.

Dale Gustin. I moved here in 79, and I got to know the editor of the newspaper, a wise man, Ben Reddick. He said the airport was the future of Paso Robles. I agree.

Yeah, $600 million in revenue. I think that's definitely going to be one of the bigger ones. Anyone else? Welcome.

Hello, Georgia Council. My name is Michael Foote, Director of Economic Development at REACH. REACH is a nonprofit economic impact organization with a mission to increase prosperity on the Central Coast through big thinking, bold action, and regional cooperation. The diversification of our local economy and the creation of opportunities for future generations to live and thrive is central to our work at REACH. The City of Paso Robles has long been a key partner in this regional effort to build more diversified, and innovative economy. The Paso Robles spaceport and technology corridor is a bold and creative model for how local agencies can set the stage to attract new investment companies and jobs to their community. Space and aerospace is a $1.5 billion regional industry with 7,000 local jobs, and it's growing fast. Last year, REACH launched the Space Vandenberg Initiative with $9.5 million investment from the state to position the Central Coast as a nation's leading hub for space innovation, launch, and workforce development. With companies like Stellar Exploration building propulsion systems and components in the Paso Airport and Tech Corridor, they're well positioned to expand R&D possibilities and broaden our economic base, as well as deepen our talent pipeline, create new opportunities for North County citizens. We're excited for the city's vision and are standing by to support the next steps in this effort not only to strengthen our local economy through industry diversification, but will also strengthen the region as a whole through a pipeline of workforce positions, opportunities for research and development, and the enhancement of the wider aerospace industry on the Central Coast. Thank you.

And we will see you next week at our REACH Summit down at UCSB. Thank you. Anyone else? Diane.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council Commission, and Airport Commission and Planning Commission. It is my honor tonight to read, I know it's online, but it is my honor tonight to read a letter of support from Congressman Panetta addressed to Mayor Hammond and the City Council dated February 23rd. I write in support of the City of Paso Robles' efforts to advance the Paso Robles Spaceport Initiative at the Paso Robles Municipal Airport. The Central Coast has a meaningful foundation in aviation, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. I recognize the spaceport project as a forward-looking regional economic development opportunity that has the potential to diversify the local economy, attract private investment, and strengthen the Central Coast position within California's growing aerospace and advanced technology sectors. Additionally, I appreciate the city's focus on workforce development and education partnerships. Coordination with K through 20 education and institutions to support workforce development aligned with aerospace, engineering, manufacturing, and technology careers can create clear pathways for local students and workers to access long-term career opportunities. This initiative also supports the city's goals of attracting higher wage head of household jobs that allow residents to live and work locally and contribute to Paso Robles' long-term resilience and quality of life. For these reasons, I support the continued evaluation of advancement of the Spaceport Project and its associated FAA licensing efforts. My office is available to assist as appropriate. Please do not hesitate to contact me regarding any questions in this matter. That's signed sincerely, Jimmy Panetta, U.S. Representative of the 19th Congressional District of California. Thank you.

Please carry our thanks to Jimmy for the financial support that's moving forward, too. Thanks, Diane. Anyone else? Do we have anyone on line?

Yes, sir. Linda George?

Linda, go ahead. Can you hear us?

Hey. Hi, Linda George, 3126 Spring Street. Well, I could just honestly say Diane and Panetta took all the words out of my mouth. I'm kidding. What I wanted to ask was actually two curious questions. With the expansion into the spaceport... It's going to be located, obviously, by the airport. So are there going to be opportunities for more retail? Because my thought process is if people come to this area, whether it's tour to see it, for flights, et cetera, how much can we encompass the traffic in that area so that people are enjoying that area in District 1? Does that make sense to you, the question? And since Diane is still in the room, I'm still plugging for the replacement of Mercy Air. And is there still going to be a location for them when this is built? And then the last comment I want to make is that the feedback I can hear on the mic, that speaker is positioned poorly because if the person at the podium has the microphone and the speaker, you're going to get the feedback. But those are my questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anyone else?

No, sir.

Okay. I think we can quickly answer Linda's question about the traffic survey. Maybe, Chris, you can kind of elaborate a little bit about that. Been working on it quite a long time.

Yeah, so obviously traffic improvements to and from the airport area are our primary focus for the city. We've been working over the last several years with the state of California, particularly Caltrans, on different concepts to improve traffic. As we approach it, we see that there are ample housing developments on the south side of 46, and you get to the north side and now you have the airport area, the tech corridor, the future site of the landing development, and many other developments that have or will occur. And so this is a primary focus. We have been pursuing, like I said, different ideas. They are not cheap. It's a significant investment. We need and will continue to need state partnership in identifying ways to improve that area. While we have been talking about an overcrossing and some secondary bridges, we are also now looking at other alternatives for say an under crossing like is happening north of us at 101 on 101 near wellzona if you're familiar with that improvement that's happening right now we think there may be some synergy and looking at something like that here but rest assured we have staff working on this literally daily and we will continue to push until we find a solution. And that's needed in the near term. That's not something that we're waiting 20 years to do. So hopefully that answered the question sufficiently.

Very good. Okay, we'll close public comment and then move back to the commissions and the council. So why don't we open it up? I mean, for questions, if any of you have been jotting down questions that we might want to get into, staff and the consultants, I'm sure, can answer. So We'll start off with Ty. You want to go ahead? Thank you, Mayor Hammond.

Just a question I had as a follow-up in the overall infrastructure to make this happen. One of the things that I was wondering is how are we doing with fiber throughout the area and through town itself, but more importantly in that area and some of the other infrastructure other than roads and traffic, as mentioned, maybe power, water, some of those things. Do we see any large obstacles in any way? I'm sure the city has already been looking at all that, especially the engineering staff. But if you can maybe give us an update, especially on the fiber optics.

Yeah, I know that was one of the first things we started talking about years ago was connectivity. So, Paul, can you elaborate?

Yes, that's exactly right, Mayor. One of the first things we did was meet with ISPs four years ago to say, This is where we're looking to go. How do we get there? And we're there now. And we've met with what we know we have out there fiber-wise, what we can have. I'd like to pass the microphone to Chairperson Britton, because he's been specifically meeting with fiber companies on this exact topic. But yes, we can do it.

Bill, you want to elaborate? Sure. Thank you. Great question. Thank you very much. You set me up for exactly my world of experience. I appreciate it. Three things that we are looking at. One is there's a massive fiber pipe that runs down Airport Road. It's not currently tapped for this resource. It could be tapped. There is an expense. That's the way the telecoms make money. So that's an option. The second one was looking at new kinds of fiber being put in. It unfortunately does not connect to the new city fiber that was just put in. So that's not going to work. however, made a reference earlier to a 3D, 3G, 3EG telecom system, a virtual private network. The idea of the virtual private network is it is being used in other cities as a support structure to supplant the high cost of fiber and telecom. And so what we're doing is a multi-phase study at the airport that will look at this private network and its utilization to fulfill what we can't get via fiber in other areas. To include services like security services, something that would normally be a lot of fiber connected to gates. Well, we don't have to run any fiber to any gate to do this. So we're really looking at not only improving connectivity, but finding a way to do it a whole lot cheaper. And so this study will start next week. They're coming out to deploy to the airports. And then we're looking at the other phases to really expand out on the opportunity to use this same virtual private network. It's not new technology. It's actually government technology that now is transiting over to the commercial sector. So that is bringing the price point down and the radios are available. And so we're really excited about the opportunity. One more option is that there is a telecom that has said they want to put an antenna on that side of the city And that would also improve connectivity. So we think that all these things we're doing is going to drive that communications technology. The water has been improved. They're looking at improvements and road improvements out there already. So all those would be mixed together. So I think it's a really good story for the spaceport opportunity.

Bill, a follow-up question by myself on that. I mean, right now with technology and where we are, fiber seems to be the fastest and biggest bandwidth for, I would assume, commercial... people like this that would need that kind of bandwidth, do you think the cell tower that we're currently doing would be enough to get us into it or down the road a ways?

No, I think the big difference is the telecom that's talking about out there also does to the home service. Its measurable rates are somewhere between 5 and 50 megs, so it's a good start. But for these kinds of companies, we're talking about high bandwidth requirements, and that's pushing a lot of data and uploading. And so if you look at our current systems, our real weakness is the upload part, which is if you're sitting around and you're building code all day long and you want to upload it to the net, 20 megs is going to take you three days to load this code up. So the more that we can get, the better on that upload and download. This new radio capability, we put one system similar to it down in Cal Poly. We have 300 megs up and 300 megs down on a radio a mile out to sea. It's amazing technology that's really coming to the forefront. With a 6G and 7G, which they're already in the planning stages, this really changes the game significantly. And a lot of rural communities are looking at this as the gap filler so that they don't have to dig fiber and put it all in these locations. Just it really fits our portfolio.

Okay. Very good. Any other questions? Yeah. Let's go ahead and identify ourselves as we start talking through the commissions.

Yeah.

I'll lean over here.

Sure.

Just a clarification, the 12 to 18 months for completion for the master plan, is that running, is the EIR running concurrently with that, or is that an additional 12 or 18 months?

No, they're not.

Okay. The 18 months on the airport master plan, a component of that is the airport layout plan, or ALP, which is one of the four remaining requirements for the application, and that is running concurrently. It's something, if we weren't doing an airport master plan update, we would have to do as a requirement for the spaceport license. That is something that is being paid for by the grant we got, thanks to Congressman Panetta. That's part of the airport master plan. That one piece is. That is not the environmental part. So that is being... taken care of during the airport master plan, which is an 18-month process. The 12 to 18 months that was mentioned here is in addition to that, which would be to address the remaining things, the biggest chunk of which would be the environmental aspect. So the ALP is running concurrently. The others haven't started yet. And if we were to say go, it would be 12 to 18 months for those. But we could run them concurrently. Not a problem.

Well, that's basically my question. Are we looking at three years here, or are we looking at a year and a half?

We're looking at a year and a half from the time we started.

Thank you.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, Paul, question on that. Again, that's what Andrew was saying, 12 to 18 months. Is that after, again, the back and forth from FAA once we submit?

Yeah, that's including. Right.

That's what I was thinking, yeah. So we could technically see something here in less than two years. That would be the goal. With a license. Yes, sir. Exactly. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah.

Joel in the Oil Planning Commission. I had a question on the CATEX. My guess is that this would require an EIS and that EIS would have been written in such a way that it would meet CEQA EIR requirements as well. If the CatX is granted, would that close the door on the SQL process as well, or would we have to do a SQL process as well?

There's an anticipation that you have to do a SQL process. If we are fortunate that they would like to use this application as a CatX, pathfinder, because they haven't done one yet in this group, then we think it still would shorten significantly the environmental assessment process. We don't anticipate that this would be an EIS. We hope not. It's very, there's not impactful infrastructure improvements or buildings or roads or anything that has to happen. So the EA is the most likely, but we're hoping for a CAD-X. It could save a few hundred thousand dollars. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other commissioners? Bill Britton. Paul, you mentioned Mojave, and this is not pick on Mojave night, but since it's available, I think the question is why are they so concerned about the engineers and them having a good time after work?

Having spent eight years in and around Mojave and Palmdale and Lancaster, I think it's extremely important for productivity and mental health and welfare. I don't have any problem. I grew a team from 12 to 120 in Mojave. And we had some turnover. because of the challenging environment. We had an extremely promising young engineer who moved from Boston. And unfortunately, after six months, they did not want to live in Deer Valley or Palmdale or Lancaster.

Yeah. I think to add to that, commercial space is creating a massive competition for engineers. And hiring is, we're not producing enough of them fast enough. That's a shortfall. So two things. One, they have to find a new way to produce engineers to go to work for these companies. And so one of those things to entice them to not only come to work for them, but to stay with them is the quality of life aspect. And I think that's been one of the things that we really want to get at here is what Paso Robles provides is that quality of life, continued experience for those engineers to work here and live here.

having spent a lot of time in Mojave, and now four trips to Paso Robles, I'm sold.

Yeah, Andrew, why don't you take a seat up close. I think we're going to have a few more questions with you there.

And I would just add on that, so yes, for as far as attracting businesses, the business attraction, it's a quality of life, which is People want to live here. But also even right now with the test stand that Mark is running out there, we have companies that come like the one we just had. They come from the week from Southern California, then they go on the weekends. They're creating midweek room nights in our hotels. And those people are eating at our restaurants and they're spending money. So even right now in the near term, we're having an impact with people just on the test stand benefiting from all of those things. But in the long term, like Andrew was saying, the quality of life means you can attract top talents. And just as a total anecdote, again, not to bash on Mojave, I was at a conference, and during the lunch mixture, I was talking to someone, happened to be a European company, I was telling them what we're doing, and a gentleman, young man, across from me at this big table, he slid his business card across, he says, can you get me out of Mojave?

I think it's important, too, to state right now, too, the other, I mean, besides bringing... folks that work in space here. I think what we need to understand is that this council has been working on other avenues to make sure that when they come, they have a home. And you guys have been approving great projects. And the fact is, you know, if there's no place for them to stay, then the big corporations are not going to really want to be enthused to come here as well. So there's other backroom pieces to this puzzle, not just what we're talking about here tonight, but the council has been very good about moving forward and taking the right steps to create homes and places for these people to be able to stay once they're here. Andrew, I had a question myself, if you don't mind. I'd like to kind of understand a little bit about, and we talked about this originally with Stu Witt in our initial meetings, is the flight path, where what's unique about Paso Robles, we have the ocean, just like Vandenberg, versus other areas, they have people underneath them, generally. Can you explain where we might be going with regard to a flyway or airway out to the ocean to do their work and then return back through? Have you explored that at all?

Yes, sir. We looked at that potential trajectories. The other thing that you're graced with is a number of military operating areas and other special use airspace over land as well as off the coast. Those are typically great things for spaceports because airlines don't plan operations through or over them because they never know when they're going to be activated. Granted, there's some flexibility. But so when you head north and you bear west, there's a wonderful open set of trajectories. and some of them fly over some Army ranges and some other helicopter and military use operations. So those are typically very good places to fly, and it's pretty straightforward to coordinate and plan those activities. In my mind, there's no anticipation that there's going to be 20 flights a day of a Dawn Aerospace-like thing. It's going to be infrequent. So that planning activity is pretty well rehearsed by others, so models to follow.

Do you see, personally, any hurdles that we're going to see moving forward with FAA and that you might be able to throw out on the horizon with regard to our licensing? It's the government.

Yeah, so I am realistic. Every once in a while, something comes up that you scratch your head and you just address, and you go through their staff changes, what was acceptable a year ago changes, but no, nothing that typically you can't get through. The other thing is that A lot of people don't realize this. The Commercial Space Transportation Office has two missions. One is safety, and the other is to promote the industry. So granting spaceport licenses is part of supporting the industry. So they have a mission to actually do that, but they have a mission to help you do it safely. So in theory, they're there to actually help you get across the finish line. So part of the application process is called pre-application consultation, and that's where they take pieces of your application and review them and get them up to speed so once you actually submit it, they can do a rapid approval within their statutory limits. They have 180 days, but they've been trying to get it down to 45 to 60 days once an accepted application is there. One of the things I will say, and hats off to Mark and his team, they're airport people, they're small airport people, and some of the product that they put together from a spaceport perspective, which they're not familiar with, was quite good. So you've got a good team.

Okay. Real quick on the fact that this is going to be more of a private corporation flying versus government. Do you think that we will be, as past Robles Airport, we of course get grants all the time from FAA to enhance the airport and the runways and taxiways. Do you think that we'll be in a better position now that we have this kind of facility that we might see more funds put into our airport from the federal side?

Traditionally, AIP money, airport improvement program money, can only go to aeronautical uses. If it's a space use, not so much. But there is a thing called a STEM grant, which is like an AIP, only better because it's a grant, not a loan. And The industry, through the Commercial Space Flight Federation, has been pushing very hard to get spaceport infrastructure funded in a bigger way. The program is there, it's just unfunded on occasion. And originally when it was set up, it was set up on a 50-50 match. We communicate with 50%. Well, that's a terrible deal. So we've been pushing to have it be 90-10, like traditional... you know, highway grant funds from the federal government, for example, for roads or 80-20. And so we've been successful, and now the next step is actually getting those dollars in. So the first, we're hoping for the next round to get $50 to $100 million of spaceport grants for infrastructure. And so that's been, that's a future industry thing. So there might be an opportunity for just what you're talking about because of the spaceport side. The other way I'll answer the question is, spaceports tend to drive activity, but some of it is aviation activity. And so if your aviation levels go up, then it might, it'll just be a rising tide, floats all boats.

More operations. I know I visited Cecil out of Jacksonville a little over a year ago, and I spoke with their director. He said, get your license, they'll come. And they have yet to fly anything, actually. And they have multiple corporations working out of that facility. It's a great airport.

Matt Bocchino is a great guy.

Yeah.

And the guy who used to run it, Todd Linder, is my colleague now. He works for our station. Oh, he came to your side. And he would love to have been here, but he's in Puerto Rico tonight. And he's listening, so... Yes, we can curse him, and he's listening. It's to his face. It's not a problem. I don't want to hog the questions here.

Yeah, well, let's kind of go to council real quick, guys. You guys have been sitting quietly. Let's start. Chris Bowles, please.

So thank you for the great presentation. I have something, just looking for your insight from vast experience with other cities that have gone through something like this. assuming that we get all the approvals and everything goes in 18 months, we're licensed, we're ready to go, how much of a lead time do we have? What can we expect afterwards? We're attracting companies. Paul's done his homework. We have companies coming here. We have some similarity in some of, and I'm thinking of the support businesses now, not necessarily the aerospace, the tech companies, but the logistic companies, those kinds of supports. I'm looking at slide 10 and your potential value chain businesses. What can we do to help get ready to help support those kinds of companies as well?

My experience has been is that if you have a facility ready to move into, it gets moved into. And so I think if you have a test stand that's not being used and someone finds out you have a spaceport license now, it attracts them. Point of reference, you don't require a spaceport license to have a rocket engine test stand. You just have to have permission from the fire marshal. Good stuff. If you're a home rocket builder... This guy, he says...

I have a three million pound thrust engine I was thinking about bringing, but we'll talk about that later.

But, yeah, so it's actually one of those things that, but once you have a spaceport license, all of a sudden it attracts a lot of rocket engine companies is the experience. So it's good to be prepared. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

So I have some technical questions. Currently we're most of the way through our FAA master plan for the airport. So at what point does the next step of the FAA process check? Can we start that immediately?

You could start your spaceport license process today. In fact, officially you've already started it because you already started pre-application consultation with them on some of the sections of the application already. So the pre-work that Mark and his team did and some of the other consultants has already been coordinated with FAA. Okay.

And then the flying paths are where your company comes in to help us pick the path of least resistance. Yes, sir. Very good.

Thank you. And we engage a couple specialty subcontractors, which I mentioned earlier for Sonic Boom and flight safety analysis.

Call it something else. Sonic.

Oh, Sonic Boom. Sonic Toot.

Thanks. Toot. I'm from Lompoc, and when those SpaceX come back, it's not a toot.

No, that's a big, that's as we like to say, that's a big honking rocket. It is. Also, if you ever heard the space shuttle land out at Edwards, there was a big double sonic boom, and there's always two of them. I should ask Michael, my sponic boom guy, why there's always two. Actually, this gentleman probably knows why there's two sonic booms, but we have to get charts and arrows and stuff.

Okay. Good for you on that, Mr. Any questions that, again, back from the two commissions? Okay. All right. Comments, then? Yeah, Chris Beal.

This is a lot to take in. I want to take a wonderful presentation by everybody, and I just want to take a minute to acknowledge all of the hard work with Mr. Scandellas, Mr. Sloan, Mr. Hewlett. I mean, we have really come a long way to get to this point, and you've certainly... given a lot for us to be thinking about. I think we should be really proud of this effort. And after my initial tour of the airport with Mark, I thought, God, this is like the best, most underdeveloped airport in the country, and we have it. So it's exciting to see kind of what the opportunities are for us. So thank you, everyone.

Steve, go ahead. So I think we're ready. We need to move forward. I think we have a much more understanding and a better consensus of the community now of what the spaceport's all about. And I think the opportunity is amazing and a game changer. We've done a lot of work on the airport for edification. We've fixed all the wastewater. We fixed all the water systems all the way around the airport. We've redone Dry Creek Road. And These are the things that we're getting ready for. And we hired almost a rocket science airport manager, Mark, over there. So Mark's doing a great job. And I think our community and our staff and our city is ready for this. And I'm ready to make a... Is a motion necessary?

It's going to be a direction, I think.

It's a direction.

Let's go ahead and make comments. Chris Strong, go ahead.

Well... I think you all know that I work at the national level frequently. And when I was back there with the National League of Cities and Transportation, we had in the deputy directors of all of the major transportation agencies, including the deputy director of DOT. Oddly enough, they had their divisions there, all of them except FAA. It was the only one not present. And one of the questions I asked the deputy was, or asked her, I should say, was why the FDA was not there. And the reason was that they were so understaffed, they were so overworked, that they didn't have anybody who could come. And therefore, she could give me no answer to my question about the status of our application at that point in time. However, she did say that she would convey that request back to FAA. And that's the best I could do at that point in time. Now, I'll be back there again very soon, and I hope that we can proceed again in my position representing transportation back in D.C. Councilman Balch.

Thank you. Again, thank you to everyone who has invested so much time and effort into bringing this so far forward. I'm excited about what this holds for the airport, for Paso Robles. I would also hope that it doesn't just stop with spaceport type of businesses. We have a lot of other good technology within Paso Robles with ag equipment that's being manufactured here with bioengineering with medical equipment, with water conservation. And I think all of that, the cross technology that could go to help support, I think Paul is very talented and could help attract those types of businesses as well. And we could give that same level of support to attract those kinds of jobs that we're desperately seeking to help augment and build Paso Robles. I think we would be well served. So I would caution against just I don't think we will, but I'll say it. I hope we don't just stop here with the spaceport. I hope we continue to grow and broaden our horizons, especially with things that are already here. So thank you.

I think you're right, Chris. You know, like we've seen with the vineyard industry and the grape growing, that there's so many other sub-industries that spin off of that industry and develop not only, you know, with grapes, but it's mostly, you know, other things, buildings, all these other things that happened because of that. I think that was demonstrated tonight in their, you know, talk. So tonight, basically what we did here, we wanted to ensure that, you know, the understanding was given across all three bodies and that we were essentially consistent with information and with one forum. And that's, I think, the goal that we went tonight. I think we've achieved that. Council's job now is to go ahead and deliberate. What staff is asking us to do is to give direction to move forward with an RFP process, which maybe Chris can explain a little bit about where we're going to go from here and how the next step will be basically to fund where we are moving forward.

Mayor, I wanted to say that maybe another question. Oh, yeah, sure. Joel? Mr. Mayor, I had a procedural question. Sure. Is the Planning Commission, the Airport Commissioning recommending that the council move forward or and is would that be a motion or um is it just that we're here and then the council will move forward yeah that's what the two bodies were here for to do is to deliberate and basically give direction to the council what you would like to see is the council looking for a motion from these two bodies i don't know if it needs to be a motion warrant or is it just a direction overall from the body

Mr. Mayor, I don't think we need direction. I think the intent was to hear their comments so that you were apprised of the members' views on things related to this topic, and then the council would take an action based upon the recommendation from staff.

Great. Thank you very much.

Chris, you want to let us know about the ROP process?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So the recommendation that's in front of the city council this evening is to direct staff to proceed with preparing a request, a request for proposal. The intent then is to distribute that RFP to qualified firms, again, with the intent of the qualified firms responding in a way that would give us a scope of work to complete the remaining steps that were discussed this evening. We would bring the proposal back that staff would be recommending to you to complete those next steps, along with a funding plan to do that. We did provide you in the staff report a range. I believe it ranged anywhere from $700,000 to $1.2 million. to complete this next phase. So part of the process when we bring the proposal back to you for award would be to bring that funding plan back to you. Of course, we're always looking for opportunities to leverage external funding for something like this. I will tell you to keep on that 12 to 18 month timeline. It will likely be a recommendation to use local city funds to move the process forward. Grants, earmarks, outside contributions are great, and if those materialize, great. However, the timing and the availability of those may not align necessarily with our process here if we want to keep on that 12- to 18-month timeline. So I would... likely recommend when we bring it back that we look specifically to use local funds to expedite the work so we can stay on that timeline. But that's a high-level overview of how we plan to proceed should we get that direction from you this evening. And then again, once that, if we go that route and then the contract is awarded, we'll bring a firm on board. They would essentially be our project manager to get us from here to the license.

Okay?

Yeah, Chris.

So assuming that this moves forward, staff would be able to generate some kind of an estimate. Would you be able to give us a range? If we spend this much, it'll take this long. If we spend a little more, we'll be able to expedite the process and stay on task. And we'd be able to vote one way or the other.

I may have to look at our team here tonight to answer that because I think what happens is it's not so much the incremental funding options. It's more of the task that needs to be funded to get the license. It's more of an all-or-nothing type of approach.

It's not just working overtime.

Yeah, I don't know that it's the number of hours.

I think it's the task that needs to be complete. I can add some subtlety to it. Most of the... the risk is the review cycles with the FAA. For example, one spaceport had 12 iterations of their explosive site plan. And it baffled a lot of people. But it got done. Another spaceport submitted something that was very similar, with the same philosophy, and it went through with one iteration. So it's, a lot of those troubles are behind The FAA now, that was a number of years ago. But those are the sorts of things that drive your schedule from 12 to 18 months is the review cycles you have on specific products. Not necessarily something under anybody's control. For the most part, the application to get written and some of the technical studies that have to occur are pretty quick and well rehearsed and done on a fixed price basis. And they just get done in a month or two or three maximum. And then the other nine to, you know, 16 months is through the, is the back and forth. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Okay. So, let's, again, they're looking for a direction. We can put it in a motion if you like. Anyone?

I'll move that we give our staff direction to proceed. ASAP. Second. Second. Okay.

Do you want to give them a range of the dollar amount?

No, no, no. We probably ought to read this out. I think what you're saying, Steve, is that the city council wants to direct staff to proceed with preparing proposals, RFPs, to solicit agreement with a firm that is qualified to complete the remaining steps necessary to prepare and submit to FAA. So they're going to do that and then come back with us to...

And you can add to it that the staff will come back with the financing plan and costs.

Yes, that's what Chris was talking about. Okay, so we have a motion by Gregory and who's second? Strong. Any discussion on the item? Okay, we'll call for the question.

Council Member Gregory?

Yes.

Council Member Strong?

Yes.

Council Member Bausch? Aye. Council Member Beal? Aye. Mayor Hammond?

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay. Well, I think, again, this is a great step that, you know, I think we all understand what's in front of us, that this is a great opportunity not only for us but for the generations of Paso Robles, you know, if we can get this nailed. And actually the entire Central Coast, too. This is not just about Paso, although we'll certainly benefit greatly, I think. But anyway.

A special thank you to our commissions.

Yeah, thank you all for being here. For our commissions. Real always good to have you with us. First time we've done this in quite a long time, I think, hasn't it? And also the public. Thank you all for coming tonight. Will we go ahead and make a motion to adjourn? So moved. So motion by Gregory, second by Bausch. We stand adjourned.

Thank you.